Brussels, 29/10/2015 (Agence Europe) - The meeting of the coordinators of the groups at the European Parliament has not yet returned a decision on whether or not to extend the mandate of the special TAXE committee.
The EPP group opposes any extension of the mandate. This week, its leader, Germany's Manfred Weber, said that the MEPs would continue to work “on this dossier in the economic committee, even if the TAXE report is finished”.
This report was adopted by the special committee on Monday evening (see EUROPE 11419). An S&D group source expressed the intention of keeping up the pressure on the states and, from this point of view, it was felt that the TAXE committee has been extremely useful. The Greens/EFA and GUE/NGL groups are firmly in favour of an extension, with the special committee's mandate due to end in a month's time. The discussion is expected to be on the agenda of the meeting of the coordinators of the groups on 16 November.
The European Commission has agreed to provide access to additional documents of the corporate taxation code of conduct group. So far, the MEPs have only been able to consult the group's documents going back to 2010 within an extremely limited framework, but the Commission is reported to have agreed this time to allow them to go as far back as 1998.
In the first consultation phase, 14 member states, including Belgium, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom, refused to provide any information regarding them, and these were therefore obscured on the documents. This time, the access conditions have not yet been specified. The MEPs are also calling for clarifications from the Commission on reports that some of the confidential documents they are struggling to get hold of had been made available to the University of Amsterdam.
The MEPs will also approach the constitutional affairs committee (AFCO) of the EP to ask it to carry out a revision of the internal rules of procedure, in order to allow access badges for the EP building to be temporarily withdrawn from the multinationals which refused to attend hearings before the special committee to discuss their taxation practices. (Original version in French by Elodie Lamer)